Steering Commitee of the Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing Conference Series

History of the Conference Series

In 1999, the Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing conference was held in Karlsruhe, Germany, and this was held again in 2000, in Bristol, UK. In 2001, the conference changed its name to the International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing, and was held in Atlanta, USA. This conference series continued through to 2012, in Pittsburgh, USA. In 2002, a conference series was established on Pervasive Computing, with the inaugural conference being held in Zurich, Switzerland. This conference series also continued through to 2012, in Newcastle, UK.In 2012, the community decided to merge the Pervasive Computing conference and the Ubiquitous Computing conference, to offer a single venue for the leading worldwide research in Pervasive and Ubiquitous computing. The first joint conference (International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing aka Ubicomp) was held in 2013, in Seattle, USA, and the joint conference series continues today.

Steering Committee Responsibilities

The Steering Committee is responsible for the following:

promoting and maintaining the Ubicomp conference as the premiere venue for researchers and practitioners interested in all aspects of ubiquitous and pervasive computing;

ensuring the highest quality for the contents of the event;

deciding where the Ubicomp conference is held each year;

providing advice to the current and future chairs of the Ubicomp conference;

resolving general issues involved with the Ubicomp conference.

running the 10-year best paper selection process

Steering Committee Membership

The Steering Committee is comprised of two of the program or general chairs from each of the five most recent (Pervasive and Ubicomp or joint) conferences. The current members are:

Future Conference Hosts

We are actively soliciting hosts for 2018, with preference to bids from the Asia Pacific region, with a host proposal deadline in mid-late 2016 (see below). The host proposal process is intended to be lightweight as possible while allowing the SC to conduct an informed review, and need not be a "polished" document, but should include:

Details of the city, including typical hotel costs

Details of at least one possible venue, including an indication of the cost of hiring the venue for 1-2 days of workshops and 3 days of multi-track conference, and the AV facilities required, and WiFi networking capable of handling 700+ connected devices. This need not be final but are indicative of the costs of holding the conference in that location. This should account for all typical Ubicomp and ISWC activities (see previous years' programs for a list of those activities), including, for example, the ISWC Design Exhibition.

Multiple sets of dates when the conference could be held.

Indications of potential collocation with other events. For example, we have collocated with ISWC for several conferences, and this has contributed to the enriching and inspiring breadth of work presented. Pervasive 2012 also collocated with DIS. The SC actively encourages collocation as an opportunity for our community to exchange ideas with other research audiences. We have built an increasingly strong and synergistic relationship with ISWC, with collocation since 2012.

A possible schedule of the conference, which should be based on recent UbiComps or Pervasives but should include 3 simultaneous paper tracks to accommodate an expected total of 12-15 paper sessions. See recent programs to get a sense of the scale. Innovative ideas for other sessions or sub-events are very welcome. Again, the chedule should include all typical Ubicomp and ISWC activities.

Short bios of the general chair(s) for BOTH Ubicomp and ISWC, and any local chairs or other community members who have indicated their willingness to serve. Program Chairs for the archival papers/notes track should NOT be specified for Ubicomp. Ubicomp has moved to a journal publishing model, and the Editorial Board of the journal will take responsibility for the papers/notes. Diversity (region of the world, gender, ethnicity, etc.) is important when considering the potential chairs for your bid.

As with previous conferences, it is important to keep the registration costs and other costs associated with attending the conference as low as possible, so that attendance is open to as many as possible. Please focus on keeping costs such as food modest, and on listing low-cost accommodation possibilities.

The conference has regularly moved around three regions: Asia/Pacific, Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) and the Americas. There is a strong intention to continue to do this with the merged conference, hence a preference for the Asia Pacific in 2017.

Deadline for proposals: 17 October 2016

If you are thinking of submitting a proposal, please get in touch with the chair of the steering committee, Anind Dey anind@cs.cmu.edu, or any other member of the steering committee (see above). The SC is happy to help advise prospective hosts before a final proposal is submitted.